Japan Outline Notes

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Japan
  • • Early Traditions
  • • Earliest people of Japan were the Ainu
  • • 2,000 years ago new waves of migration pushed the Ainu north
  • • Society built around Uji.
  • • -local clans (social group built around common ancestor, and special god/goddess

Shinto
  • • Native Japanese religion
  • • Animistic- believes in spirits (kami) throughout natural features.
  • • Shinto shrines are found by special natural sites

  • • Yamato Clan
  • • 500 CE
  • • Dominate Yamato Plain on Honshu
  • • This becomes the center of Japanese government
  • • Create the first and only dynasty
  • • Claimed to be related to sun goddess Amaterasu

  • • Korean Bridge
  • • Korea and Japan in regular contact
  • • Trade, technology sharing, intermarriage
  • • 500 CE Korean missionaries bring Buddhism to Japan
  • • With it also comes knowledge of Chinese writing and culture
  • • Begins era of Japanese interest in everything Chinese

Selective Borrowing
  • • Japan decided what influences to adopt from China
  • • Prince Shotoku- drafts 17 Article Constitution
  • • After his death his successor institutes the Taika Reforms
  • • -Began with land reform, based on Confucian ideas
  • • -brought about greater centralization and to enhance the power of the imperial court-based on the structure of China.
  • • -the Chinese writing system, literature, religion, and architecture, to even dietary habits at this time.
    • • 710 CE Capital city of Nara is created in Chinese model
    • • Heian Period
    • • Fujiwara Clan rises to power through advising and intermarriage
    • • 794 CE Capital is moved to Heian (Kyoto today)
    • • Originally modeled after Tang China, Heian culture becomes unique and flourishes
    • • -Reading: Rule of Taste Cult of Beauty
    • • -Reading: The Pillow Book